*Basic* (go/no-go) network switch testing

Hi,

End-of-year, sort-through-cruft time. (Fun -- NOT!)

I have several network switches that I need to decide to keep or toss. An obvious criteria for doing so is broken ports!

I was going to just set up a pair of hosts, have one in an infinite ping loop (RTT's being displayed for each ping) and hot plugging the other host (obviously, the *target* of the ping) into one port at a time.

Plug in, verify that the next few pings succeed, unplug, advance to next port...

But, I'm wondering if I will need to cycle power to the switch between unplug-plug events? Or, will the unplug event be causal enough to cause the switch to "forget" what's attached to the unplugged port?

(I don't want to falsely determine that subsequent ports are "bad" when it is really the switch misdirecting traffic based on stale data!)

Any other *quicker*/safer way to test them?

Thx,

--don

Reply to
Don Y
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The switch should figure out that something has moved as soon as it sees a frame from the old MAC address on the new port. Worst case, issue a ping (any destination off the local host) from the moved PC.

Reply to
Robert Wessel

The switch should learn the destination address of the device plugged in from the first ARP packet sent. it should update whatever tables are in the switch with the new port.

The big problem here is that some network stacks do not re-arp unless you disable and reenable the network interface. And then there's DHCP...

Some switches have a significant amount of configuration, stuff like VLAN assignment. The manual is your friend...

-- Les Cargill

Reply to
Les Cargill

Yeah, I just didn't want to *do* anything on the "moving" host. (i.e., all the activity was on the "stationary" host) :-/

Hmmm... I guess I can set up *both* hosts to ping each other! (so I don't have to "type something" each time I unplug/plug...

I.e., modify the above to be:

Plug in, verify that the next few pings TO AND FROM succeed, unplug, advance to next port...

Thx!

Reply to
Don Y

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